Monday, March 4, 2019

Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

I love the wider reach that Slice of Life is giving me.  When I "rebooted" my blog a couple of years ago, I had hoped it would be something that people could find, read, relate to, and enjoy.  Maybe this challenge is that dream coming to fruition.  Due to the new readers that are finding their way here, old friends, please forgive me as I lay down some background knowledge that is needed before getting to my point.

I teach Deaf Education.  I am currently assigned to upper elementary, and I love it.  Honestly, that's an understatement.  It's my passion.  It gave (and continues to give) meaning to my life when everything I held most dear was destroyed. I taught General Education for five years, and I struggled.  I walked away from teaching convinced I would never return.  Little did I know that not only would I go back, I would wake up eager to go to work every day.  Okay, most days.  I do get tired by the end of the week!  I also didn't know that I would become an absolute teaching nerd.  I soak in all things Professional Development and seek to improve myself at all times.  What a path my life has taken!

This job is not without significant challenges, though.  The one that drives everything else is the fact that most of our students do not have parents that know sign.   One of the basic principles of teaching English learners is that you use their first language to build a bridge to their second.  Our students need to learn English, but they do not have even a first language.  They are semilingual.  

The impacts of this are far reaching, and if I listed them all I would be writing all night.  And I was supposed to be in bed 40 minute ago.  Suffice it to say that as a Deaf Ed teacher, you are often faced with difficult decisions that reach far beyond the curriculum.  For example, with this utterly insane Momo business and other dangerous YouTube influences disguised as children's fare, you have to face the question of, "What do I talk to my students about because their parents can't?"  Instructions for suicide.  Porn embedded in "Paw Patrol."  It's a scary digital world, and how do you guide our most innocent through that when it really should be in the parents' purview?  What is appropriate in an elementary school setting?  How much do they need to know?  These are students who spend their hours outside of school in front of a screen due to language barriers.  How do you protect them without scaring them?  It is a difficult road to walk.

This massive responsibility is not all dark and depressing, though.  Today held a bright spot.  I have students more advanced than many we see, and they are beginning to encounter English words and phrases that do not have signs.  They must use other ASL grammatical constructs to convey the meaning of these words and phrases.  This where not having a first language becomes really problematic.  But it can also be very fun to open the door to their linguistic and cultural birthright.  I wish I had a Deaf adult who could do this part for me, as it is their language and my students need those role models.  But in the absence of that, I get to take just five or ten minutes a day to start teaching them about their language.  It truly is a joy to open the world to them.  Sometimes, it is important to take the long view and realize teaching is not only about curriculum.

5 comments:

  1. "Sometimes, it is important to take the long view and realize teaching is not only about curriculum." Amen to that! What an reflective post on what we do what we do. So glad you are finding purpose!

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  2. Your post is so interesting to me. Are your students all hearing impaired and you instruct them across the curriculum with sign language? I have become more interested in issues with hearing as I finally faced my own hearing loss and got hearing aids this year. I have a pretty severe loss in my left ear and some loss in my right. It's genetic- my father's family all lost some hearing in early middle age. Thanks for your post!

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  3. How to protect children, even when they aren't in your room and how to prepare them for all that's 'out there' are tough decisions teachers make every day. Teaching isn't about the curriculum, it's about the child. Keep taking the long view!

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  4. I am so glad you found your way back to teaching. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason. I believe you needed that time away and what a gift you have been given! I find your world of teaching very interesting. And your last line says it all - it is NOT only about curriculum! Thank you for sharing this peek into your corner of the world.

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  5. So glad you found your place in teaching. Working with the deaf is a great honor and hard work. Stay with it - you might reach out to the deaf community in your town to find a volunteer who might like to come into the classroom to help your students and be that role model you are looking for.

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